Amazon said Tuesday it is suing administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups for encouraging people to write fraudulent reviews about products sold in its stores in the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.
The lawsuits are aimed at identifying “bad actors” and removing fake reviews from Amazon websites, the e-commerce giant said. The company noted that these groups have requested fraudulent reviews for hundreds of products sold through its services, including car stereos and camera tripods. One group, called Amazon Product Review, had more than 43,000 members until Facebook’s father, Meta, shut it down earlier this year.
False criticism has long affected major online retailers, with scammers offering gift cards or other incentives to people who will offer brilliant reviews on products they have never used. Manufacturers of products that resort to fake reviews are often eager to get 5-star scores that can grab buyers ’attention or bring their products to the top of Amazon’s search results. But false reviews ultimately undermine the credibility of retailers.
“Our teams stop millions of suspicious reviews before customers see them, and this lawsuit goes a step further to discover the authors operating on social media,” said Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of Sales Services for Partners d ‘Amazon, in a statement.
Amazon said it has more than 12,000 employees working on fraud and abuse issues, including fake reviews, and that it has reported more than 10,000 fake review groups on Meta.
Meta has shut down about half of the groups reported by Amazon, while investigating others, Amazon said Tuesday.
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